So, hey, it snowed here. If you're Facebook friends with anyone from the South, you probably already know that. You probably know that a LOT.
One woman brought her child to work yesterday, a child who was about 18 months to 11 years old. She sat at one of the desks and drew and read and was way quieter and more mature than the rest of us. Anyway, Molly, this woman at work who isn't named Alex so right there it makes her rare and marvelous, got the idea that we should all say what time we thought the snow should start, and that the child would hold on to our times and yell out when she saw the first flake. I forget what the winner got because the winner was not me, as per usual.
How can a loser ever win?
Molly is one of those people who's good with kids. I would have been all, Hey, do you know anything about proofreading? How about making coffee? I am the reason child labor laws were invented. Anyway, the snow started around lunchtime, when I was out being humiliated at the grocery store, or "food store," as one of the Alexes at work called it. "I ought to go to the food store and stock up if it's gonna snow." Yes, English IS her first language.
Anyway, my store humiliation. Do you remember the other day, when I got a blueberry pie on sale at the store and when I got to the checkout I had -$7 available so I was unable to buy pie? Yesterday at lunch, I and four hundred billion other people went to the store to get food because soon we'd be snowed in and everything would be shut down except Gray's Tavern, which is this bar downtown that never ever seems to close.
My point is, I said screw it. I'm gettin' a blueberry pie again, and I added a rotisserie chicken, some blue corn chips and also chili. It was a comprehensive list that met all my needs. I KNEW FOR A FACT I had money this time, and when I got to the checkout? Card. Declined.
"&##@%," I said, storming out of the store. Oh, I was mad. I screamed home, got online and YES. I HAD MONEY. What the foxtrot. So I called the damn bank.
"Hi. This is your bank. If you're calling because your card was declined, we sent you a new one a month ago, because everyone got scammed using their ATM cards at Target and you know you go to Target 90 times a month, so activate your new card and you're all set, there, Sparky. Also, nice waiting for a month to activate. Para español, oprima dos."
"@#%@&," I said. That ATM card had been on my bathroom sink for ages, because I like to get the mail, come in and get right on the pot. My hot friend Dan even remarked on it. "You...know you have an ATM card on your sink, right?" Dan is probably one of those people who always has books of stamps.
I found the damn card, called to activate it, screamed back to the damn food store and bought everything. On the way out, I spilled the entire chicken juice contents on my sweater.
I slay myself every time I throw that in.
Anyway, I got back to work and within an hour they sent us home, because it went from being a normal gray wintery day to being Santa's wonderland that fast. I live three miles from work and it took me 20 minutes, because people just...stop when there's a storm. They just put on their warning lights and come to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Later last night there was a news story about this woman being stuck, and they showed the half inch of snow some Good Samaritan shoveled out from under her tire. One scoop and you could see road.
However. I have to tell you. This was real snow. And real effing ice. We got seven? Nine? A lot of fricking inches of snow, and unlike Michigan where it's magically melted thanks to nine billion ice trucks, here it just remains. The snow remains the same.
Ned and I had plans to go to the movies last night, and he was the last person to leave his office yesterday. "Is anyone else there?" I'd asked him when I got home. "All the women have left," he started, and when I asked what THAT was supposed to mean, he said testosterone made you drive better. I said, "I have three words for you: My. Uncle.Leo."
Anyway, the damn theater was closed and I told Ned it was too scary to get on the road, so we decided to just talk on the phone later. About 8 p.m. I called him, all sad and missing Ned-ish.
A friend of his had put this picture on Facebook. Look at young hot Ned, with his daisy and his cigarette. It just makes me want to make out with him in 1990, is what it does. All handsome and broody. Even the ducks are all, "Heyyyyy."
"I'm driving over," I said. "I'm not scared." "Really?" said Ned, who grew up in the South.
Dudes. That was the scariest effing drive in the history of time. The only people on the road were a UPS driver going 10 with his hazards on, a news truck and a plow. And my sturdy VW Bug. When I got to Ned's I was shaking like Camilla Parker Bowles during a hay shortage.
"You should have forbidden me to make this drive," I groused, pulling off my snow-encrusted boots. "That was awful." The good news is, Ned fed me and we even watched an episode of Sex and the City to calm me down. I got to pick the episode, so I picked I Heart NY, which is my favorite one.
Afterward, we took a walk in his deserted neighborhood. Everything was so quiet, and the snow was still falling.
Say, can we get a table outside?
Outside Ned's apartment, we saw his cat in the window. Ned threw a snowball and she turned and looked out at us, being all Rapunzel or Juliet or whatever.
wat hell wrong wif yuu 2? it cold and icee. nedkittee stay in. haff brayne in hed. ass hoe ells.
At the end of the night, Ned said, "What I've taken away from this evening is I get to forbid you to do things. I never even knew I had that kind of power."
One worries what sort of Pandora's box I have opened, here.
They canceled work today and then told us we had to work from home, so I ended up probably doing more work than I normally would at work, really. But in between my DAMN EMAIL pinging EVERY EIGHT SECONDS, I went outside with the dogs, who with each step would have to crunch through the layer of ice on top, so what they looked is elegant. Is what they looked.
hooo care, mom. it totlee fun out heer.
Iris went out, too, and threw herself on her back and rolled on the surface of the ice. I have no idea why she likes snow so much.
Lily stayed in. A trifle judgmentally, if you ask me.
That picture up there with both dogs makes me think of Ned's niece, who is 14. She watched her younger brother and sister playing in her front yard yesterday and sighed. "They're ruining our snow look," she said. My dogs so totally ruined my snow look, too.
Anyway, we don't have work till 10:00 tomorrow, and it's VALENTNE'S DAY, my favorite holiday, so I will report back later with my hundreds of Valentines.
Frostily, June
